book review

Claire Meyers knows her twin brother Danny didn’t commit suicide. Determined to prove it, she heads to her hometown of Willow Harbor, South Carolina to learn what really happened. Only what she finds is more than she bargained for.

Mason Danver didn’t ask to become a vampire. He didn’t ask for his soulless marker to seek him out either. All he wants is to help the one girl he’s never allowed himself to have figure out what really happened to her brother.

As the mystery surrounding Claire’s brother’s death begins to unfold Mason learns he’s more connected to Danny’s death than he ever thought possible.

Strange Neighbors. Hidden Desires. Small Town Charm. Welcome to Willow Harbor where everyone has a secret. What’s yours?

Rating: ★

** spoiler alert ** When I started this book I was really excited because the first few pages were really well written and it was a breath of fresh air.

But the more I got into the book, the more it got worse.

I really really wanted to like this series. I was super excited to buy all the books when they first came out, but I may have to bow out after this one. Neither the first or second book was up to par with what I expect from a published piece.

Even though I love Willow Harbour and the whole meeting the other characters from the previous book in this book…which I have to say I was SUPER happy about, there’s a few things that drag this story down.

Mattie is desperate when she accepts a librarian position in the small coastal town of Willow Harbor. She plans to spend a few months there, enough time to get a reference and move somewhere she actually wants to be. But fate has other plans.

Pierce has given up on finding his mate. His family line of true shapeshifters will die out, but there is nothing he can do with only a few weeks left before his birthday. Until Mattie shows up in town.

When Mattie’s past catches up, and Pierce’s family turns on him, will fate be enough to see them through?

Strange Neighbors. Hidden Desires. Small Town Charm. Welcome to Willow Harbor where everyone has a secret. What’s yours?

Rating: ★

** spoiler alert ** I really really wanted to jump right into this book and be swept away to Willow Harbour, I was waiting ver impatiently for release date. And then release date came.

This book was rushed and it shows.

Characters are introduced but never properly described so the reader is left with this faceless body-shape with a name tag.

This is the second of Mary’s books that I have read, and I have the same internal struggle with it. Mary has these wonderful stories that need to be expanded on. Both books original ideas are amazing, but the execution of both is weak.

Take Uriel’s Absolution’s summary:

Damon Garcia is a normal young boy, except he is knocking at death’s door. He stumbles upon an arch angel Uriel who asks for his aid in order to slay a demon named Tim Timberlake. Who also happens to be an international rockstar. They two search for a spear.The only spear that can obliterate the monstrosity.The pair get ambushed by the minions of the demonic abomination, while searching for the spear. Uriel uses his supernatural power to destroy them. They venture on to the concert of Tim Timberlake. Uriel and Damon face the abomination in order to save the world of his diabolical intentions. Does Uriel regain god’s favor and get a ticket into heaven? Does Damon die from his terminal illness?

ANGELS!

It sounds amazing, if it wasn’t a short story [less than 3,000 words in total] it could’ve been great.

Mary has these great ideas, but she doesn’t follow through with them. Maybe it was always supposed to be a short story, but I don’t feel like it should be. Because we get a fallen angel and demons walking the earth, and we barely get to know them before it’s all over. If she did want to expand on it and make it a longer story, I wouldn’t blame her. That is all I’m saying.

The writing, as with her other book, needs a bit of approving on:

Damon went to the kitchen to find something to eat. HIs mother was at work. Damon’s independence was due to his mother neglect. She was almost never home. For the rest of the day Damon watched cartoons of[f] the TV[,] and sat alone in the apartment.

This little snippet could be approved on, those fullstops don’t necessarily need to be there and just makes the flow sound choppy. Description would help this piece out a bit more as well.

For such a short piece, there was a lot of grammatical mistakes, missing words and misspelled words, which doesn’t come across well to the readers. It gives out the message that if the author didn’t care enough to edit properly, why should we as readers care?

So, bottom line. Uriel’s Absolution has a good idea, but again it could have been worked on so much better than what we got.

Avery is a normal teenager, except for Venice. Venice is Avery’s imaginary friend or so she thinks. When the two begin to fight. Avery starts her investigation, to figure out what Venice really is. She encounters a wise old exorcist, and an albino psychic who assist her, with attempting to remove Venice. Which comes too late as Venice goes on a murdering rampage using Avery’s body. Does Avery survive the Wrath of Venice?

Being a fallen angel used to be easy. A quiet life with the people she loves is all Sara ever asked for. Unfortunately, the apocalypse didn’t get the message. After nearly losing everything, she’s managed to put her life back together and start living what she hoped was happily ever after with her small family. Now she wants nothing more than to hide away and pretend the end of the world is a distant rumor. Her life has already been torn apart once. Doesn’t she deserve a break?

The apocalypse finds its way back to her doorstep when a letter arrives. Is it a friendly warning, a dire threat, or a simple reminder that she can’t run away from what’s to come? Sara refuses to take heed and pays dearly for her avoidance. With her family in danger and the preservation of free will hanging in the balance, she finds herself with no other choice. Sara must follow the path forged for her, a path that may take away everything she holds dear and leave her in pieces at the end. She’s caught between Heaven and Hell, and the last person she’d ever have considered trusting might just be her greatest ally.

Rating: DNF

“Unfortunately, the more you try and shut out the ghosts who need you to listen, the louder they shout. And the more you try to get your family to understand, the crazier they thunk you are.”

I LOVED the beginning. It holds all the information you need about the character and who she is in just two sentences. I thought this was perfect. But, as of writing the start of this review, I haven’t finished Heaven and Hell, and it’s the reason behind the ‘0 stars’ rating. I still have book 2 to read, so I’m going to try and finish this to get to book 2, but we’ll see. Continue Reading →

Okay, this book had the premise of being a great story, and I really really tried to get through it. I really tried my best to give it a shot and to shake off initial thoughts on, but I just couldn’t.

I ended at 28% on the ebook that was given to me. I would have ended a lot sooner, but I really wanted the story to warm to me, but it didn’t.

Maybe you’re the type of reader who doesn’t need a lot of detail, or can overlook weird phrasing, but a lot of what I read didn’t sit well with me. It was like there was too much of ‘trying’ to sound smart, but it just ended up like a hot mess of a crap. One prime example would be:

“From galaxies away, two hands caught mine and clenched them tight.” – this was only to describe that he took her hands. What was the point of even writing ‘from galaxies away’? Continue Reading →

Max is on the run, but is he running from his past, or toward his future? Only Ulf knows…

Werewolf Max knows desiring males is wrong, but he can’t help himself. When his pack nearly kills him in an attempt to cleanse him, Max runs. Jumping on his motorcycle, he heads north.

Ulf has lived on his own in the wilds of Northern Ontario for a long time. When he catches the scent of a stranger in his territory, he’s angry at first, until he realizes that Max is more than just another werewolf. They’re mates.

Ulf must make Max believe that two males can be mates, but just as he’s about to succeed, Max’s past catches up with him. Will the home they’ve been hoping to build together be lost for good?

My Review

Rating: ★★★

I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I started with this book, it was out of my comfort zone and probably the reason I agreed to it.

I liked the werewolf society that we were giving glimpses of in this book, it was really thought out about their eating patterns and where they’re situated ruling how they function. The author did a really good job with that aspect of it.

Where the book fails is in description and a good edit. I really really wanted to get into this book and like it and like the characters, but there wasn’t enough meat for me to do so. Do you get me? I wanted to like Max and Ulf but I don’t even know if we ever got a good facial description of either of them. We just get reminded that their bodies were ‘sexy’ or ‘handsome’. Characters are what readers end up loving, not what happens to them. I wanted to picture them, picture their eyes or even be remotely able to paint a picture in my mind of what was happening.

I like action sequences and fights, and I got super excited when it was building up to one, but it fell flat. It may be because the book was more aimed on their relationship, but if you’re going to put in a fight sequence I think it should have more of a punch and more time giving to it. I would love to have more time on it, and for blood and gun-fire and for the two to limp back home, but it was just…it happened…they’re home. voila!

There was also quiet a lot of typos…my biggest pet-peeve, the minute one pops up I struggle with reading the rest of it.

If you can oversee all that I’ve pointed out, then it’s a good book to pass the time as it’s a quick read [took me just under 2 hours], with a lot of steamy sex scenes and for that purpose it’s thoroughly enjoyable.

About the Author:

Often referred to as “Space Cowboy” and “Gangsta of Love” while still striving for the moniker of “Maurice,” Sean Michael spends his days surfing, smutting, organizing his immense gourd collection and fantasizing about one day retiring on a small secluded island peopled entirely by horseshoe crabs. While collecting vast amounts of vintage gay pulp novels and mood rings, Sean whiles away the hours between dropping the f-bomb and pursuing the kama sutra by channeling the long lost spirit of John Wayne and singing along with the soundtrack to “Chicago.”

A long-time writer of complicated haiku, currently Sean is attempting to learn the advanced arts of plate spinning and soap carving sex toys.

Barring any of that? He’ll stick with writing his stories, thanks, and rubbing pretty bodies together to see if they spark.

I have read my fare share of ‘making a deal with the devil’ and it’s always the same regurgitated storylines that I’ve stopped trying to find my ‘demon’ novel to fall in love with. It just isn’t happening. This is no exception.

I really wanted to like this book, but at only page 29 out of 233, I’ve lost interest.

It’s amateurish writing and story setting that just gives me a bad taste. From the very first line of the story had me thinking. It shouldn’t have me thinking, I should get grabbed by the world and character from the get-go, but it was like the readers were plonked into this scene where we know nothing about the character or what we’re supposed to be looking at. I was left completely blind, which isn’t a good starting point. All we got was ‘a gravel road’…what gravel road? What’s around? What time of day is it? I like my setting to be set up before going into the details of the characters grumbling stomach, because all I saw was a stomach.

Still on the same page, the author’s wording could come off a bit better. For example, when she’s about the crash, to give the speed and action, the words cut have been chopped off and give it a much better rhythm. The way the character thinks is off putting…i doubt anyone would think like that just after crashing her car. See my problem? And I am only on page two.

Then comes the part where the two characters meet for the first time, with “But it’s his eyes that capture me.” – Really? Really now? I mean, you’ve just crashed your car, hurt your shoulder and meet this complete stranger, and this is the first thing that comes to mind…

StIll I pushed on, just to get to her blushing on the next page because the total stranger smiles. I’m kind of getting agitated already.

The author tends to info dump quiet a lot with uneccesary thoughts from the MC, thoughts that wouldn’t necessarily happen at that moment in time, but just for the sake of the reader. On this front, it could do with another round of editing. I’m still only on the second chapter, and the emotions from the MC are over-dramatic, I have a feeling its supposed to get a reaction from the reader but it just too in-your-face and unrealistic to be pulled off.

Another of my pet-peeves is not being told what characters look like, so all I’m left with is a body-shaped person with no features or face. I would like to have some details of the character so I am able to imagine them. Also, one-page chapters? Really? I honestly I picked this up really wanting to read it, and to like a self-published author’s work, but I have to call it quits. Sorry. There was too many things wrong with the first four chapters to keep me reading.